A cornerstone of American letters, Walden is Henry David Thoreau's chronicle of the two years he spent living by himself at Walden Pond, contemplating the individual's relationship to society. Thoreau first published this book in 1854, and its themes of self-reliance, independence, individuality, and integration with nature still resonate with readers today. This elegant gift edition reprints the full text of Thoreau's classic and features a stylish...

A couple who are old friends of Isabel's ask for her help in a rather tricky situation: A successor is being sought for the headmaster position at their alma mater. The board has four final candidates but has received an anonymous letter alleging that one of them has a very serious skeleton in the closet. Could Isabel discreetly look into it? And so she does. What she discovers about all the candidates is surprising, but what she discovers in herself...

"The ever-delightful, insatiably curious Edinburgh philosopher and amateur sleuth returns to take on a case unlike any she's had before--this one with paranormal implications--in the tenth installment of this beloved author's consistently best-selling series. From a small town outside Edinburgh comes the news that a young boy has been recounting vivid recollections of a past life: a perfect description of an island off the coast of Scotland which...

"An infamous Renaissance classic, The Prince shocked Europe upon publication with its ruthless tactics for gaining absolute power and its abandonment of conventional morality. Niccolo Machiavelli even came to be regarded by some as an agent of the Devel, his name taken for the intriguer "Machevill" of Jacobean tragedy. For his treatise on statecraft Machiavelli drew upon his own experience of office under the turbulent Florentine republic, rejecting...

Isabe's son, Charlie, is now of an age, eighteen months, to have a social life, and so off they go to a birthday party, where, much to Isabel's surprise, she finds Minty Auchterlonie, the high-flying financier she first encountered in The Sunday Philosophy Club. Minty had seemed to Isabel a woman of ruthless ambition, but the question of her integrity had never truly been answered. Now, when Minty takes Isabel into her confidence about the complicated...

Republic, by Plato, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics: • New introductions commissioned from todays top writers and scholars • Biographies of the authors • Chronologies of contemporary historical,...

The philosophy of the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius can be found in a collection of personal writings known as the Meditations. These reflect the influence of Stoicism and, in particular, the philosophy of Epictetus, the Stoic. The Meditations may be read as a series of practical philosophical exercises, following Epictetus' three topics of study, designed to digest and put into practice philosophical theory. Central to these exercises is a concern...

"I was living in a fairy story-the kind with sinister overtones and not always a happy ending-in which a young man loves a beautiful maiden who returns his love but is always disappearing into some unknown and mysterious world, about which she will reveal nothing." So, John Bayley describes his life with his wife, Iris Murdoch, one of the greatest contemporary writers in the English-speaking world, revered for her works of philosophy and beloved...

All great leaders, thinkers, artists, athletes, and visionaries share one indelible quality. It enables them to conquer their tempers. To avoid distraction and discover great insights. To achieve happiness and do the right thing. Ryan Holiday calls it stillness -- to be steady while the world spins around you. Drawing on a wide range of history's greatest thinkers, from Confucius to Seneca, Marcus Aurelius to Thich Nhat Hanh, John Stuart Mill to Nietzsche,...

Illuminates key tenets in the influential philosopher's beliefs through the story of his life, tracing his middle-class existence against a backdrop of fifth century B.C. Athens while sharing analyses of specific aspects of his personality.